Applied Research AI Engineer

About the role

As an Applied Research AI Engineer you will turn cutting‑edge AI advances into practical, scalable solutions for customers. You will work at the intersection of research and engineering, turning new models, evaluation methods and system designs into prototypes and production‑ready components.

Key responsibilities

• Investigate the latest advancements in generative AI, machine learning and applied research, assessing their value for customers.
• Design, implement and benchmark AI systems such as RAG pipelines, copilots, agentic workflows, evaluation frameworks and fine‑tuned models.
• Translate research papers and experiments into robust prototypes and production‑ready building blocks.
• Build reproducible experimentation pipelines for model evaluation, prompt optimisation, dataset curation and system comparison.
• Collaborate with AI engineers, full‑stack developers and project managers to integrate research outcomes into customer solutions.
• Improve model quality, reliability, latency and cost‑efficiency through systematic experimentation.
• Develop and maintain containerised AI back‑ends and research tooling using Python, Docker and FastAPI.
• Create clear documentation and technical communication around experiments, findings and implementation decisions.

Required profile

• Master's or Ph.D. degree in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, NLP or a related quantitative field.
• Strong hands‑on experience in applied AI, machine learning, NLP or generative AI.
• Excellent Python skills and experience with modern ML and LLM frameworks such as PyTorch, Hugging Face, LangGraph, LangChain or similar tooling.
• Solid understanding of transformer models, embeddings, fine‑tuning, prompt engineering and evaluation methodologies.
• Experience designing experiments and interpreting results in a rigorous, pragmatic way.
• Ability to move from research concepts to working prototypes and production‑oriented solutions.
• Strong understanding of software‑engineering fundamentals, data structures, algorithms and version‑controlled development workflows.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms and AI services such as Azure.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to explain complex technical ideas to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Fluent in English and Dutch; French is a plus.

Required skills

• Python
• Docker
• FastAPI
• PyTorch
• Hugging Face
• LangGraph
• LangChain
• Azure

What we offer

• Rewarding salary package with perks such as a company car and fuel card or a mobility budget, comprehensive hospitalisation, group insurance and a top‑tier laptop and smartphone.
• Company culture that stimulates both individual and team development, fostering professional growth.
• Opportunity to work on meaningful, innovative AI projects that bridge research and real‑world impact.
• Time and space to investigate new tools, frameworks and methods that can strengthen our technical offering.
• Regular team‑building activities and gatherings.
• Flexible hybrid working policy.
• Opportunities to represent Faktion at industry conferences, technical events and research‑driven customer conversations.